I think that one is in part a linguistic shift, rather than a change in people's perceptions--- the word has just acquired a weakened meaning over the centuries, so people using it aren't intending to mean it in original, stronger and more literal sense.

There's an interesting chapter in the book Hyperbole in English (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521766354/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...), Ch. 6 on Conventionalisation, on how, with some words, what started as hyperbole has caused a meaning shift such that later users don't always perceive themselves to be using hyperbole, but just to be using the contemporary meaning of the word.

I'm in some kind of middle ground here. I generally fall into the same category as Gabriel (the blog author), but try to compensate by using words like awesome and cool to the extent that I have polite tourettes. I buy a coffee and when the barista hands it to me I reply "that's amazing, thank you"; someone tells me their mum's died and in the desperate struggle to think of an appropriately empathetic response mumble the words "that's cool, nice". Hmm, not sure where I'm going with this comment - started out as giving an amusing anecdote / fishing to see if others fall into the same boat, but just realised I may have started using HN as some kind of therapy site, so will stop now. Replies are still welcome though. Awesome.